Evening in Paris by Bourjois c1929

 Sold in department stores and drug stores for over thirty years, Evening in Paris was given to many a mother, a sweetheart or a friend as a special gift to win her heart with its enticing scent.

Evening in Paris by Bourjois: created by Ernest Beaux, assisted by Constantin Mikhailovich “Kot” Weriguine, was launched in 1928 in France under the name Soir de Paris and was an instant hit. The name evoked the reputation of gaiety, romance and love of the French capital. It was then named Evening in Paris and 1929 for sale in the United States.

Fragrance Composition:

So what does the original smell like? It is classified as a sweet aldehydic floral fragrance for women. It starts off with a cool, green aldehydic floral top, followed by a sweet and spicy floral heart, layered over a warm powdery base.

• Top notes: aldehydes, orange blossom, violet, bergamot, estragon, cyclamen
• Heart notes: ylang ylang, linden blossom, clover, lilac, rose de mai, jasmine, lily of the valley, orris, carnation, wallflower
• Base notes: vanilla, Mysore sandalwood, myrrh, vetiver, styrax, amber, incense, musk, benzoin, heliotrope

Marie-Claire, 1937:

"Soir de Paris by Bourjois: dry, penetrating. Dominant note: jasmine, oak moss. Excellent on the skin. For blondes and chestnuts. In the environment where she evolves, she is 'the beautiful Madame Une Telle'."

Bottles:

Originally presented in a midnight blue hemispherical Art Deco flacon designed by Jean Helleu, and produced by Verreries Brosse.

The scent became Bourjois' most successful fragrance. By the 1950s, it was touted as "the fragrance more women wear than any other in the world," yet by 1969 it had disappeared from shelves.

The fragrance was available in parfum, eau de toilette and eau de cologne. You may also find dusting powder boxes, talc bottles, sachet bottles, soap, lipstick, bath cubes, hand lotion, perfumed bath oil, rouge, cologne sticks, compacts and face powder.

Evening in Paris was attractively packaged in gift boxes, some in the shape of stars, sailor's hat or a crescent moon. These special gift sets were often for sale around Christmas, Mother's Day and Easter.

Beetleware Cases and Presentations:

It is possible to find the various novelties for the perfume made up of "Beetleware." You might come across the lucky horseshoe, clam shell, turtle, hotel door, grand piano, shoe, egg, grandfather clock, champagne bucket, owl or very rarely the Eiffel Tower & Marble Arch presentations. The Marble Arch presentation was created for the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953. 

Beetleware was an early type of plastic formed from a urea formaldehyde powder developed in England by Streetly Manufacturing Co. and licensed to American Cyanamid, who introduced it into the US in 1929. These cases are erroneously touted as being made of "Bakelite,"but this is not the case. The chemical name for plastics like Beetleware is urea formaldehyde, and they differ from the phenol formaldehyde resin plastics such as Bakelite in that the raw material is an absolutely clear, colorless substance. Beetleware can be made in a variety of vivid colors such as red, white, green, blue, and these colors, unlike those of Bakelite, hold up even today without significant change to hue other than fading due to sunlight exposure. I have found the clamshells in pink, white, blue, green and red beetleware.

Lucky for us, these novelties were molded with their english registry numbers so we can pinpoint their date of manufacture:  

• Grand Piano has registry number: 824784 for 1937.
• Clamshell has registry number: 810099 corresponding to 1936.
• Turtle has registry number: 818385 corresponding to 1937.
• Owl has registry number: 825003 corresponding to 1938.
• Hotel Door has registry number: 832419 corresponding to 1939.
• Toby jug has registry number: 834875 corresponding to 1939.
• Grandfather Clock has registry number: 837401 corresponding to 1940.
• Eiffel Tower has registry number: 859996 for 1949.
• Slipper has registry number: 866164 corresponding to 1952.

During the 1940s, there were wartime presentations and all packaging bore the following statement: "This is a temporary Victory package. The contents are unchanged."

c1943 ad

c1943 ad

c1943 ad

The Fate of the Fragrance:

Bourjois was bought out by the Wertheimer family who then purchased the Chanel group. Chanel now owns Bourjois and Evening in Paris was reformulated in 1992 by Chanel's leading perfumers. The result was a sweet, smooth, creamy, slightly wood based fragrance known as "The Most Popular Fragrance in the World." The newly formulated perfume is still for sale today.

So what does the reformulation smell like? It is classified as a soft, sweet floral fragrance for women.

• Top notes: aldehydes, violet, bergamot, peach
• Heart notes: heliotrope, tilleul, clover, lilac, Turkish rose, jasmine, iris
• Base notes: cedar, vetiver, styrax , amber, musk, sandalwood and vanilla